AuthorTopic: Emulating OpenReach ADSL & VDSL (Read 598 times)

I work for a small re-seller ISP, who also own a chain of retail stores in the UK that use our broadband services.

As part of a project to refresh the networking hardware in the retail stores, I'm looking to set up a test environment for our support staff that emulates the (A/V)DSL connections that come from BT OpenReach.

My plan is to give them a Web UI to configure the ports with different sync speeds and PPPoE login details, so they can make it match the customers real connection, allowing them to test modem/router device configurations before they ship.

I'm looking to purchase a Huawei MA5616 DSLAM with two line cards: CALE: 32*ADSL2+ +32*POTS CVLC/CVLE: 32VDSL2+32POTSWhile according to your main site, those aren't the ones in use by OpenReach (at least for VDSL), it should allow me to fully emulate a voice+data line on the same device, for both ADSL2+ and VDSL FTTC.

Does anyone have any idea what configuration and/or line profiles OpenReach are using on their Huawei MA5616 kit?

There is absolutely nothing user configurable that you can test on the Huawei DSLAM's that will also work in the live OpenReach network.OpenReach have everything pretty locked down.

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My plan is to give them a Web UI to configure the ports with different sync speeds and PPPoE login details, so they can make it match the customers real connection, allowing them to test modem/router device configurations before they ship.

I understand wishing to test the PPPoE login stuff but none of that comes from the DSLAM and can all be tested without 1.

Every single modem you ship for FTTC (VDSL2) needs to be configured the exact same way. This doesn't change between ISP's at all.

PTMVDSL2ANNEX BProfile 17aVLAN:802.1q: 101802.1p: 1

This is the only user configurable options (That work), and they need to be exactly this or you won't achieve sync.

Then there's the ADSL kit.The settings for that will be completely different.OpenReach don't run this from Huawei MA5616's.

I don't see the point in spending what I deem to be a lot of money on a very modern/expensive/capable DSLAM to try emulate a PPP connection.

I understand to test PPP between two ethernet devices is straight forward without a DSLAM, but in our case most of the CPE devices they are configuring to ship to customers are integrated modems with the WAN port being ADSL/VDSL only, so without the DSLAM in the middle, you can't test, can you?

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There is absolutely nothing user configurable that you can test on the Huawei DSLAM's that will also work in the live OpenReach network.OpenReach have everything pretty locked down.

It isn't about playing with DSLAM settings to test that side of things, it's the CPEs we are concerned with.

The config on the Huawei is just about about getting close enough to what OpenReach use, without needing to be exactly the same (as you mentioned about the ADSL hardware), that we can do end-to-end testing on multiple CPEs without needing to have loads of actual OpenReach lines up to the office, with the added benefit of being able to test with the desired PPPoE login and force a slow sync speed if we want to test QoS, etc.

While those other configurable settings for the CPE are fairly straight forward, the CPEs we are shipping vary a lot between customers (no ideal, I know) and to have them arrive on site only to not work out of the box if our support engineers haven't set them up correctly is fairly embarrassing - arguably worth the investment in the DSLAM by itself, since centralized config generation doesn't seem like an option in all instances.

Having an environment for our engineers to learn on, end-to-end comfort test whole environments with before deployment and experiment with close emulations of real world scenarios has been invaluable in the past and it's something I'm confident that for the sake of a ~£600 investment will bring us a lot of benefits - although perhaps I am being naive, only time will tell